The traditional view of the Inca religion is based largely on the records of Garcilaso de la Vega, Bartolomé de las Casas, and Pedro Cieza de Leon. In the Commentarios Reales, the Hispanicized Incan aristocrat Garcilaso de La Vega depicts the cult of the Sun as the main one. The main temple in Cusco, Coricancha, is said to have been dedicated to the Sun, with similar Sun Temples scattered throughout the region; the Inca rulers are believed to have prided themselves on their Sun ancestry. The sacrifices to the Sun are detailed.
While Garcilaso mentions a god named Pachacamac and only briefly mentions Viracocha, we know almost nothing about the real nature of this religious system. Bartolome de las Casas, great protector of the Indians, comes closer to the truth when he portrays the solar cult as a product of the cult of Viracocha, the Sun worshiped as the most magnificent of Viracocha's creations and as a constant reminder of his sovereignty. The institution of the solar cult is attributed to Inca Pachacuti, its main seat is Coricancha, which is "aquel grandisimo y riquisimo templo de la ciudad de Cuzco". Cieza de Leon's proof is essentially the same. Coricancha is, according to him, "as old as the city of Cuzco" and dedicated to the Sun.
Cristobal de Molina, a Spanish monk, wrote his Chronicle around 1573. He traces the cult of the Sun back to the reign of the first Inca, Manco Capac, and links the first appearance of the Sun with the Moon to the time immediately after the Flood; these luminaries, being placed in heaven by the Creator. Manco Capac, who lived in the first era after the disaster, made an agreement with the Sun that he and his descendants would accept this luminary as their divine parent. Whether the Sun was the main object of worship at this time is, however, an open question; one of Manco Capac's descendants, Inca Yupanqui, inspired by the vision, is said to have created the Viracocha temple in Cuzco, which was before him a small and impoverished settlement. He is also credited with introducing the cult of the Sun along with the cult of the Creator; later it is believeda third cult will be added to them - the cult of the Lightning Strike.
Ancient buildings of the Incas
The report of Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa (1532-1572) adds a few significant details: “The natives of this country say that in the beginning, before the world was created, there was one whom they call Viracocha. And he created a world, dark, without the Sun, Moon and stars."
The sun, according to the Sarmiento story, did not appear until after the Flood. Sarmiento talks a lot about Viracocha and his deeds, and also reports on the worship of the Sun in Cusco and elsewhere. But while Sarmiento conveys invaluable information about ancient times, as remembered among the Quechuas Altiplano, his account of the cult of the empire is meager and of little value, as it is colored by his arrogant and hostile attitude towards a culture that had only been trampled underfoot by his compatriots just a few years earlier. He brings together some of the traditions he has collected under the heading: "The Myth of the Origin of These Barbarian Indians According to Their Superstitions."
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Ancient buildings of the Incas
With such information, there was little reason to doubt the true supremacy of the solar cult in Tawaintisuyu. But a little over a century ago, a number of important literary discoveries changed the situation very significantly. In 1873 Clemens R. Markham, in the course of a survey of some of the collections of the National Library of Madrid, discovered a previously unknown sixteenth century manuscript entitled Relacion de antiguedades deste reyno de Piru.
Its author, an Aymara Indian named Pachacuti Sallkamaywa, who was recently converted to Catholicism, came from an aristocratic family. The same library also contained a manuscript by Cristobal Molina, Fabulos y ritos de los Incas, which fell into obscurity immediately after its birth three centuries ago (Markham published a translation of it in the same 1873), and soon after that in 1879, an anonymous seventeenth-century treatise, De las costumbres antiguas de los naturales del Piru, was published. The publication of these manuscripts, with their precious new information about the religion and culture of the Incas, should have triggered a complete reappraisal of traditional views on these issues. Although a reappraisal did take place, it did not result in any significant changes in the accepted understanding of the political and religious life of Tawaintisuyu. Full revaluation is overdue. In particular, the notion that the solar cult was central to Tawaintisuyu is no longer reliable.
Before the publication of the Juan Pachacuti manuscript a century ago, we had a lack of evidence that could strongly oppose the consensus of the various chroniclers that the Temple of Viracocha was dedicated to the Sun. However, Pachacuti included in his manuscript a rough drawing of the altar of this temple. The altar itself was destroyed shortly after the conquest. This drawing is critical to understanding the Coricancha cult and thus about Tawaintisuyu in general.
We can see that the dominant deity depicted on the altar is not the Sun, but a large oblong disc, which the author says was made of gold. This disk, the largest object on the altar, is surrounded on both sides by the Sun, Moon and Venus, depicted in its two aspects as the Morning Star and the Evening Star. If the Sun were the main object of worship in Tawaintisuyu, as the chroniclers have assured us to date, it would be expected that his image would occupy a dominant place in the main temple of the kingdom, supposedly dedicated to him. Instead, we find him definitely relegated to a dependent position.
Directly disc Pachacuti describes this way: "Dicen que fue imagen del Hacedor del verdadero sol, del sol llamado Viracochan pachayachachiy" - "They say that it was an image of the Creator of the true sun, the sun named Viracochan pachayachachiy." Viracochan pachayachachiy is usually translated as "Viracocha, Ruler of the Whole Earth." This statement causes some confusion: Viracocha is called the "true sun", apparently to distinguish it from our familiar star. The latter is also depicted and marked as Inti, that is, the Sun. According to this assumption, it was not Viracocha that was depicted on the altar, but his unnamed Creator. But, as we have seen, Sarmiento claimed that Viracocha himself was the Creator, and this seems to be the general Inca view. The golden image in the center of the altar must be identified as Viracocha. It was, after all, the most sacred site in the Temple of Viracocha.
Pachacuti reports on the origin of the image: This was first done by Manco Capac in solid gold and was supposed to show the Creator of Heaven and Earth. Manco Capac placed him in a large house called Corichancha, which means “golden enclosure [enclosure -?; in the original - enclosure] ". For some unknown reason, during the reign of the Inca Meitai Kapaka, the gold plate required restoration; at the same time, new ceremonies and festivals were established for the worship of Viracocha. All other objects of worship have been downgraded: "menospreciando a todas las cosas, elementos y creaturas, como a los hombres y sol y luna." Pachacuti does not state definitely that there was a "Sun named Viracochan pachayachachi", but only that it was not our Sun, which he defines as Inti. The solution to this puzzle is obviouslywill give us the most important clue to the real cult of Tawaintisuyu.
An affirmative answer to this question would not have been possible had it not been for the discovery of a work by an anonymous Jesuit from the early seventeenth century, entitled De las costumbres antiguas de los naturales del Piru. This still largely ignored text, which was published in 1879 shortly after its discovery in the National Library of Madrid, contains much more information than the reports after the Spanish conquest about the nature of the Inca cult to which it is dedicated. Alone of the chroniclers, the author abundantly quotes the contents of the kipu, with whom he consults, or rather, the Indians who were entrusted with keeping the records of the quipu, and in whose minds these ropes with knots still retained memories of past events. This is what most of his other contemporaries failed to do.
Its sources are varied. In addition to the kipu, he also refers to Spanish authors, among whom are several whose records are now lost. On the basis of his sources, he confidently refutes many of the claims that authors like Polo de Ondegardo have made about the religion and customs of the Incas. Briefly, like all Jesuit chronicles, the manuscript overturns the standard concepts of the solar cult of the Incas. Since, as far as I know, the manuscript has never been republished since its first appearance in print over a hundred years ago and has never been translated into English, I will quote from it a somewhat long passage (translated by the author of the article):
“They believed and said that the world, heaven and earth, sun and moon, were created by someone greater than them: they called it Illa Tecce, which means“Eternal Light”. Contemporaries added another name, that is, Viracocha, which means "Big God Pirua", denoting Pirua, the first inhabitant of these lands to be worshiped, and the one from whom the whole country and empire received the name Pirua, which the Spaniards distorted to Peru or Piru. The devil deceived them, in the sense that this great and true God transferred his divinity and power to various creatures, so that each one fulfills his functions in accordance with the tasks and properties transferred to him; and that these gods accompanied and advised the great God, and were mainly in heaven, like the sun, moon, stars and planets.
For this reason, the inhabitants of Peru lived for a long period of years without idols, without statues, without images, since they worshiped exclusively heavenly bodies and stars.
They said about the Sun that it was the son of the great Illa Tecce and that the physical light that it gives is part of the divine nature that Illa Tecce passed on to him so that it could guide and control the days, times, years and seasons, and also kings and kingdoms and rulers and other things. About the Moon, they said that she is the sister and wife of the Sun, and that Illa Tecce gave her a part of his divinity, and made her the master of the sea and the winds, queens and princesses, women's concerns, and also the queen of heaven. They called the moon Coya, which means "queen".
About Dawn [that is, the Morning Star], they said that she is the goddess of young maidens and princesses and the creator of flowers in the fields, and mistress of dawn and twilight; and it is she who throws the dew on the ground when her hair is swaying, and that is why they called her Chasca [that is, hairy].
They named Jupiter Pirua, emphasizing above all that he was the planet that the Great Illa Tecce had commissioned to be the guardian and lord of the empire and regions of Piru, and his government and his lands; and for this they sacrificed to this planet all the first fruits of their harvests and all that seemed the most remarkable and most beautiful in their properties, such as the cobs of corn or corn, or other fruits and fruits from the trees. To this god they dedicated their granaries, their treasures, their warehouses, or the best ears of corn, or the first ears harvested, and they named the reserves that they kept in their homes, which included their wealth and clothing, their dishes and weapons, - " Pirua. "Secondly, they said that the Great Pirua Pacaric Manco Inca, the first inhabitant of these lands, when he died,was taken up into heaven to the house and dwelling place of a god named Pirua, and that he was settled there, and there he enjoyed himself with this god.
Mars - Aucayoc - they said, were entrusted with matters of war and soldiers; Mercury - Catu Illa - Matters pertaining to merchants, travelers and messengers. Saturn - Haucha - is entrusted with managing epidemics, bloodshed and hunger, lightning and thunder; and they said that he possesses a club, balls and arrows to strike and punish people for their evil."
What is really striking about this passage is the close similarity of the characteristics attributed to the major planets, the characteristics adopted by the Greeks and Catholics. Among the Incas, as well as among the Greeks and Catholics, Zeus or Jupiter is known as the chief among the gods. Ares or Mars is the god of war, Hermes or Mercury is the god of travelers and merchants. The word "merchant" actually comes from the Latin mercari = "to trade", which is one of the functions of the Roman Mercury. The malevolent nature of Saturn was also recognized among the Greeks and Catholics. How can these similarities be explained? At least three possibilities suggest themselves:
1. The anonymous author was influenced by Greek and Roman mythology with which, as an educated Jesuit, he was well acquainted. He transferred this knowledge to the faith of the Incas, about which he claimed he was reporting. But that would imply that the Jesuit had deliberately falsified his method of gathering information. But, as noted above, he is exceptionally meticulous in citing his sources by name and location.
2. The author's Inca sources were influenced by Greek and Roman mythology, which they got to know with the help of the Europeans in the first years after the conquest of Peru. They assimilated this information into their own mythology and later passed it off as their own. This suggests that the Spaniards were telling the natives of Peru about some of the more remarkable points of Greek and Roman mythology, rather than about the Trinity and Christianity in general, which apparently left no trace in the Kipu narrative.
3. The Incas were influenced by contacts with the Phoenicians or other peoples of the Mediterranean region during the pre-conquest period. The ancients had the technical means to cross the Atlantic Ocean, and there are some indications that they did indeed cross it. Charles Hapgood provided evidence that contacts between the ancient civilizations of the Mediterranean, America and the Far East were once commonplace.
The ancient Incas were skilled surgeons
Regardless of the explanation of the similarities with the mythology of the Old World, the anonymous Jesuit provides important information about the nature of the Inca cult. Besides Coricancha, he mentions the Temple of Viracocha, the Temple of the Planet Jupiter, and what we may call the "Temple of the Dragon".
The "Temple of the Sun", the author tells us, was later converted to the Church of Santo Domingo - but, according to Martin de Maurois and other authors, the Church of Santo Domingo is the former Coricancha. Thus the "Temple of the Sun" and the Coricancha are one and the same temple. But we have already investigated the Coricancha altar and found no evidence that the cult of the Sun was the main one there. His main object of worship is identified as Viracochan Pachayachachi. The object of the Coricancha cult appears to have been some kind of celestial body that was called the "sun" before Inti, the modern sun, was created.
Was Jupiter the one who, according to the chronicler, was given power over the entire earth? But Jupiter had a temple separate from Coricancha. Was it Saturn? Saturn or Haucha is not displayed in any way on the altar, and there are no separate temples on this planet as far as is known. Saturn seems to be a more likely choice than Jupiter; however, the contemporary sources on Tawaintisuyu at our disposal do not give any direct indication of the true character of the main cult of the empire with its object of worship, Coricancha; the suggestion that it was Saturn must be based on extraneous sources, mainly from Babylon and China.
We went as far as we could on the basis of local evidence; now we must see if the cosmology of other ancient peoples can shed some light on the question.
That an astronomical body can be called a "sun" and still be something other than the sun may seem strange at first. But there is a close parallel in Babylon. In Babylonian astronomy, Alap-Shamash - the "star of the sun" - was Saturn. Ninib, another Babylonian designation for Saturn, "said to shine like the sun." In India, the reference to the Sun, arki, was also applied to Saturn.
In Sanskrit, arka means "related to the sun" or "associated with the sun". But Arki is the name of Saturn, the most distant planet visible to the naked eye. Arc means to shine, to be brilliant, Arkin means to shine with light. Arkaja, a name often applied to Saturn, refers to the offspring of the Sun (Markandeya Purana). Diodorus Sicillian (II. 30. 3-4) reported that the Chaldeans called Kronos (Saturn) by the name Helios or the Sun. Hyginus (Huygens -?) Also wrote that Saturn was called "the sun". (De Astronomia II 42. 8-10.) These examples demonstrate that there is no inconsistency in the interpretation of the reports of the Inca sun worship and sun worship in Coricancha as actually referring to Saturn.
The evidence from China sheds even more light on the cosmology of Tawaintisuyu; but for us to use this testimony properly, something must first be said about the political organization of the kingdom of the Incas.
Ancient buildings of the Incas
Tawaintisuyu means "four quarters" of which the Inca empire consisted - Chinchasuyu in the north, Qollasuyu in the south, Antisuyu in the east, and Kuntisuyu in the west. At the center of Tawaintisuyu was Cuzco, the capital with the Inca ruler and Coricancha. From Cuzco, four roads led to each of the suyus or quarters. These roads, described in detail by the Polo de Ondegardo, had a significance that went far beyond their function as a means of communication. Here is a description of Polo: “From the Temple of the Sun, there emerged, as from the center, certain lines, which the Indians called ceques; and they were divided into four parts according to the four royal roads that left Cuzco …”And Polo continues with a detailed description of the shrines that were located along the ceques and roads.
The organization of the Inca kingdom closely resembles the political organization of the Chinese Empire. According to the Han Shui historian Ssuma Ts'ien, the planet Saturn "corresponds to the center." Four other planets represented four major points; Saturn was located at the pole, and the entire stellar sphere was believed to revolve around it. The earthly kingdom was founded to reflect the celestial sphere. Just as Saturn was central to the sky, so the imperial palace and emperor were central to the Chinese Empire. In the center of the Inca empire stood Coricancha, the shrine of Viracocha. If we can, on this basis, suggest that the center of Tawaintisuyu was also dedicated to Saturn, then it follows that Coricancha was the temple of Saturn, and Viracocha, the main object of worship in this shrine, was none other than Saturn.
Author: ANDREY SKLYAROV